


Inbox (0)

by themegalosaurus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, College, Gen, Light Angst, Stanford Era, Worried Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 14:05:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13765722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus/pseuds/themegalosaurus
Summary: If Sam fucks up, he’s got nothing underneath him; no kind of scaffolding. That’s what matters about law school.





	Inbox (0)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the SPN Seasons anthology, which required canon-compliant genfic of around 1200 words, themed around the four seasons. My season was 'Spring'. Thanks to Ally for all her work putting the collection together!

Inbox (0). Sam clicks, refreshes. Inbox (0). Click, refresh.

Jess’s hand on his shoulder makes him jump. “That’s not going to make it arrive any faster,” she says.

“I know,” Sam says. Without really thinking about it, he twitches his finger. Click. Refresh.

Jess shifts her weight onto her back foot, steps away and he looks up at her, his eyes burning with the glow of the screen. She tilts her head on one side, smiles tentatively. “I’m going to go get a bagel,” she says. “You gonna come?”

“Um,” says Sam. In the corner of his eye, the laptop shines. He looks back at it, just for a second.

“Right,” says Jess drily. “I’ll pick something up for you.”

He watches her disappear out the door, hears her footsteps clattering downstairs. Inbox (0). Click, refresh.

“You know,” Jess said to him last night, when she woke at 2am to find him doing sit-ups on the bedroom floor, “if you did - I mean, Sam, I know you aced it. You worked all summer. But if it didn’t work out this year… would it be so bad to take some time off?”

Tired and jittery and too stressed to rehash an old conversation, Sam had just told her, “Yes.”

Luckily Jess is a saint, so she’s not mad at him this morning (not a saint, just a nice understanding person; not a Winchester, who who holds grudges and refuses to talk). It’s bothering him, though; this idea that she wants to go off exploring and it’s Sam holding her back. She had this plan that they could backpack around the States, hit up the national parks and the big cities, go hiking, explore. “Road trip,” she’d said, smiling, and Sam had tried to imagine it; but his mind kept stuttering back to the Impala, Dad driving and Dean upfront, Sam sulking or dozing or sweating in back. Motel to motel to campsite to run-down house. His stuff, everything he owned, crammed down to a duffel bag in the trunk. He doesn’t want that again. He has belongings, here; pot-plants, posters, cushions. More than one pair of shoes.

(He can’t shake the picture of himself and Jess, backpack-laden, crashing into a bar in Nowhere, North America and seeing Dad with a whisky in hand, staring at them grim-faced across the shady room. Even the thought of it curdles his gut with - what, humiliation? Fear? Dad probably wouldn’t say anything to them, not a word; would just stand up and walk straight out, face set. Sam doesn’t know why he’s so scared of that.)

He did tell Jess that she should do the trip without him, if she wants to. He doesn’t want to tie her down. 

(He doesn’t want to tie her down, which is why his bank account is still $600 in credit and the nineteenth-century ruby ring is still in the window of the antique shop downtown.)

Inbox (0). Click, refresh.

(He wonders, has Dad thought about the fact that Sam’s in his final year of college now? Does he wonder what Sam’s going to be doing with the rest of his life? Somehow, Sam doubts it. If anything, it’s Dean who’ll show up on his doorstep the day of his last exam. “Okay, Sammy. Got that out of your system?” And the car behind him, gleaming, and Sam burdened all over again with the necessity to be selfish, to disappoint.)

Jess doesn’t really understand - doesn’t know, because Sam hasn’t told her - all the complicated weight of childhood that puts him off taking off with her. She thinks the reason Sam’s so dead set on law school - law school immediately, law school as soon as they leave - is to do with what happened to Brady.

“It’s not an either/or,” she says. “It’s not like taking a step back is the same as dropping out completely.”

Technically, Brady hasn’t dropped out. He’s managing to scrape along at the bottom of all his classes, is somehow still in line to graduate - just. But yeah, he should have been here alongside Sam, waiting for MCAT results, dithering between med schools, getting nerdy about tropical diseases. Instead, as far as Sam knows at least, Brady’s sprawled out on the grass somewhere downtown, stoned or high or drunk or some combination of all three and making clumsy, not-particularly-cutting remarks about the nerds he used to hang out with in the first two years of school. He can say what he likes. It’s still Sam he turns to when things get scary: that time he thought the campus police had spotted him buying pills around back of the campus bar (“I’m not a lawyer yet, Brady”); when he thought he was going to fail his statistics class. Sam had spent two straight days drilling him, eating pizza, had felt like he was on the edge of getting Brady back - and then had been woken the night after the exam by a bottle through his window and Brady’s voice, “Oh shit.” Jess had silently swept up the debris. Sam hadn’t heard from Brady for the next three months.

(Yeah, okay. Maybe Sam has  _ some  _ idea how Brady’s scraping that pass.)

Inbox (0). Click, refresh.

(Sam still worries about what happened at home that threw his friend so far off course. He only met Brady’s parents a couple times but they seemed normal, nice even, if intimidatingly rich and poised. He hasn’t spoken to them since Brady changed, although he considered it once or twice, the first few times Brady didn’t bother to show up to class; when he’d rock up half an hour late, ragged and stubbly and breathing alcohol fumes across the desk. Sam got as far as tapping the Bradys’ number into his phone, before he put it down again. He couldn’t figure out what it was he’d say.)

If Brady dropped out, he’d go back home, Sam supposes. Maybe that’s what he’ll end up doing after graduation, bumming back to Colorado to get stoned in his parents’ poolhouse.

If Sam fucks up, he’s got nothing underneath him; no kind of scaffolding. That’s what matters about law school. It’s the next rung of the ladder. If it snaps, he’s not sure where he’ll land.

(“Come on, Sam,” he can hear Jess say. “There’s more than one job in the world.” It’s true. He’s pretty decided that if he can’t get into law school this go round, he’ll plan to start teacher training next fall. It’s not law but it’s solid enough. He wouldn’t have to worry about money too much. And then they could travel in the vacation, maybe. He thinks he might be willing to do that, with a house and a job and Jess secure to anchor him. Maybe not around the States, but they could travel abroad. That would be fine. He doesn’t  _ need  _ law school. There’s more than one plan.)

Click. Refresh. Inbox (1). Sam’s stomach seizes in a stuttering lurch.

He’s still shaking when Jess comes back with the bagels, his face pale enough that she freaks out and drops them when she enters the room. When she sees the grade onscreen she punches him hard in the shoulder and starts to cry. “You fucker,” she says. “I thought that face meant you’d fucked it up.”

The clouds are lifting a little bit. Sam can see the next rung overhead.

**Author's Note:**

> Your comments are always gratefully received! <3


End file.
